Well, the module arrived yesterday and it's now together. I sacred the hell out of myself when I first put it together. I soldered the leads together and coated them with a thin layer of silicone sealant, to keep them from shorting, and assembled it. I hit the button and nothing, so I shut it off and got out the battery pack as quick as I could. It turned out, the leads from the diode were so thin, that one of them broke near where I soldered it during reassembly. I re-soldered the leads, hoping to hell I hadn't burned out the driver. This time it worked.:bowdown:
Apparently I got one on the very low end of the spectrum. I can't see the beam, even at night, unless I'm looking down the barrel of the host. When I put the beam through smoke, it's the same color as the bulb of a black-light. Even the spot, when slightly out of focus,is barely visible from a fairly short distance. I knew that it wasn't goung to be nearly as bright as a green, but I thought that even BluRay beams became visible at around 70-80mW at night, and mine should be at least 170mW. It will, however, light matches and I even popped a balloon from 18ft.
I do have a couple of questions:
1. Is my diode abnormally low on the spectrum? There is nothing blue about it.
2. On the sheet that came with the module it said that at 190mA the diode should draw about 5V, but the combination of 3 AAAs is only 4.5V. The fact that the laser is working, means it must be getting enough current but is it really enough? Will that affect the power output of the laser? I seem to remember seeing somewhere AAA size batteries that were 3+ volts each. If they exist, should that work better?
3. The laser has a very distinct focal point. I have to adjust the focus differently at 1ft, 5ft, 10ft, etc... to get a dot as opposed to a relatively dim violet blur. Is this an inherent problem with focusable lenses? Is it even possible to get a relatively parallel beam like most pointers?
All the same, I really do like it (it happens to be my favorite color), and shining it on anything florescent is just insanely bright. I was really hoping the beam would be visible but I guess that gives me an excuse to build another one later (hopefully with a higher wavelength).
Thanks again.
P.S. You weren't kidding about removing the back of the acrylic lens. It was easily twice as bright.